


Scratch

by Anonymous



Series: Performance reviews [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Background Established Relationship, Breathplay, Cannibalism, Crying, Extremely Rough Sex, Forced Orgasm, Gore, Honour Bondage, Itching, Jealousy, M/M, Nonnies Made Me Do It, Painful Sex, Post-Canon, Sensation Play, Vore, mindgames, non-con, thinly-veiled excuses for porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 14:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20908982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A demon's still a demon, and the Devil's come to take his due.





	Scratch

Crowley woke slowly, warm and comfortable, to a hand running through his hair. Even half-asleep, he recognized it: six thousand years of trying not to look too long, and a scant few months of looking his fill, and now he knew those delightfully, perfectly plump fingers by feel. He gave a sleepy wriggle of contentment. Aziraphale didn't often stay the night. (Granted, when Crowley conked out, it was not often night, and occasionally lasted for weeks.) This was a special treat. 

The hand combing his hair shifted down to pick up one of Crowley's hands and coax it away from his face. Breath warmed his fingertips, and then gentle kisses were being pressed to them. Crowley wiggled close enough to press his face to Aziraphale's hip in appreciation, and found more delight in store for him: Aziraphale was wonderfully naked, not all done up in the pyjamas and dressing gowns that he usually insisted on right up until the moment demanded they be discarded. Crowley pressed his face to soft skin and sighed happily. 

A hint of teeth turned the kisses into teasing nibbles. Crowley stubbornly continued to play dead, hiding his face against Aziraphale's hip and trying not to smirk. 

Then the hint of teeth became something more. 

"Ow!"

Reflexes had Crowley yanking away--and utterly failing to move. The sharp pain beneath his fingernail refused to be shifted, and he might as well have embedded his finger in stone for all the luck he had pulling at it. Crowley started to sit up, flailing, and then there was yanking on his finger in the other direction and he yelled in pain, striking out blindly. His eyes were watering. 

His free and flailing hand was caught by the wrist and held. Crowley blinked away tears of pain and hurt, staring at the bloody half-circle where his fingernail should have been. At the mouth hovering above it, and that beloved face. At eyes that did not belong in that face. 

Aziraphale's eyes were clear and blue and the most lovely things in the world. The eyes that looked on Crowley now could not be surpassed for their beauty, and held as much warmth as the most remote void in space. They gleamed like twin suns and devoured light like the depths of the Abyss. _They were not Aziraphale's eyes._

"Hello, My dear," said Aziraphale's mouth. 

"Ngh," said Crowley. He felt very cold all over. "L-Lord Lucifer." 

Lucifer smiled, and Aziraphale's face dimpled. 

_Oh,_ thought Crowley. _Oh._

Aziraphale's tongue darted forward. With the same expression as Aziraphale would have worn while licking the last drip of chocolate sauce from his fork, Lucifer lapped at the blood pooling to run in a thin line down Crowley's index finger. Here, at least--here was something different (something _not those eyes_). Aziraphale's tongue was nothing like sandpaper. 

Crowley swallowed, and tried to use that to pull his frightened wits about him. This wasn't one of his centennial reviews. This was on Earth. Unless he'd been dragged down to Hell... but wherever he was, wherever _they_ were, it wasn't just his own existence at stake. Simulacrum or habitation, either was very, very bad, but not knowing left him far too vulnerable to making things worse. Worse-er. Things were going to get worse; there was no escaping that.

He tried to make his voice come out more 'diffident' than 'scared'. (He'd have done so even if he hadn't had an angel to worry about. Lucifer never liked it when His playthings fell apart too quickly.) "This is... an unusual form for you, Lord." 

Aziraphale's lips smiled. "I thought you'd be appreciative." His teeth grazed over Crowley's middle finger. 

"I could never be anything less, my Lord," Crowley said faintly. He was aware that he was watching Aziraphale's mouth much like a particularly stupid rabbit might regard a hungry snake swaying back and forth, nearer and nearer. Unfortunately, _he was not the snake._

The smile widened. Teeth dug in beneath Crowley's nail, in a way that human teeth really were not meant to do, and then their razor-sharpness gave way to a dull squeezing, gripping, pulling. Crowley ground his own teeth together and kept himself from yelling, but it would have taken a genuine miracle not to let his breathing grow ragged, and he didn't dare. The nail came free of the bed, and blood welled over another finger. 

"It's a very... a very interesting choice, Lord," he managed.

"More interesting than even I'd expected," Lucifer agreed. He began slowly pushing His teeth under Crowley's next fingernail, worrying at the flesh like a human trying to push a thumbtack into a wood too dense for it. He'd blunted His teeth on purpose, damn Him. It had no effect upon His speech as He continued, "And so comfortable. One anticipates a certain _narrowness_ from petty angels, but this one is really quite expansive." He gave one of Aziraphale's happy little wriggles, the kind he made when settling in with a cup of cocoa and an oft re-read book. Crowley breathed in hard through his nose and kept his jaw clenched shut, anticipating. For a moment the pain at his fingertip was all blunt, deepening pressure, and then a third nail ripped free. 

Lucifer held it up. There was a critical furrow on Aziraphale's brow, a frown pulling all the laugh-lines into sharp relief. "Really, dear, if you're not going to bite these out properly, you could at least take care of them." He dropped the nail and held up Aziraphale's hand for comparison, showing neatly trimmed crescents and clean cuticles. 

Crowley tended to bite his nails down to the quick when he was nervous, or when he was bored, or when he was being That Person Sitting Next To You On The Bus. "Sorry, Lord. Bad habit." 

"Oh. Well, in that case, carry on." 

He was pretty sure he'd just been broken of it permanently, actually, but Crowley decided not to mention that. His fingers were beginning to itch beneath the sticky blood. Crowley bit his lip, and Lucifer grinned at him. "And that's another thing!" exclaimed the Morningstar. "Mouths. Such a delightful thing, this mouth. I think it's My very favourite thing about this body. Do you know why?" He licked Aziraphale's lips, then ran His tongue over His teeth--Aziraphale's teeth? Crowley couldn't tell. He needed to figure it out. He had to stop getting distracted by the beads of blood slowly, so slowly rolling downward toward his wrist. 

A heatless warmth washed over Crowley's bleeding hand as Lucifer breathed out over it. Pinpricks jolted up Crowley's spine to the base of his skull. He didn't want to ask. He wasn't going to ask. He wasn't--

One more inch forward, and then Lucifer nipped off his little finger, His teeth slicing cleanly through at the second knuckle. Crowley felt it as a jolt of sudden bright pain down his arm, followed by an equal sensation of pleasure; the former radiating down from where the new end of his finger had sent a jet of bright red blood spurting over Aziraphale's collarbone, and the latter originating where Lucifer's fingers touched his own. Despite all his efforts to hold still, he shuddered. 

Lucifer's eyes closed as He chewed. Crowley had spent a not insignificant amount of time--even by immortal standards--staring at Aziraphale's face as he experienced all the culinary wonders that humanity had to offer, and now searched his face for signs of difference, some proof that Aziraphale was merely being _imitated_ and not _inhabited_\--but with those eyes shut and mouth closed, he could see no difference. If not for all the blood getting everywhere, it might really be Aziraphale sitting there, savouring a delicacy that Crowley had hand-fed him. 

Right up until He opened His eyes. The expression of cherubic delight remained as He swallowed and said, "It has such an _exquisite_ set of tastebuds!"

"Er. Um. Yeah, that makes--nngh--that makes sense." 

Lucifer had started to nibble on a knuckle. He made an inquiring hum, His teeth vibrating unpleasantly against the raw edge of bone. 

"I mean, this one--" Crowley tipped his head toward Lucifer, indicating corporation, not the wearer. "I've been working--ah--on him for a while. I think I've mentioned it in my reports, how often he's gotten in my way, but I've had some luck with Gluttony, especially--fff--especially _ardenter_. If, um, if You've taken that corporation from him, Lord, then--_ow_\--"

"I don't take," Lucifer chided. "I possess what is Mine." 

"Er," said Crowley, more faintly this time. "Is he still there, then?" 

He felt Lucifer smile against his hand. There were more teeth involved. 

"You've always been one of My best at knowing how to apply temptation. Gluttony... I did think it had been awhile since I'd seen one of those from you. The last time--what was that brown liquid?" Lucifer glanced up. Red spilled over his lips. 

"Um, chocolate? Coffee," Crowley corrected himself. 

"Oh, yes. Conquest, subjugation, and excessive queueing. Your presentation was marvelous." 

Despite everything, Crowley felt a spike of pride. "I didn't realize You--nnn!--saw that one." 

"I see everything in My domain, darling. Coffee. That's what you taste like." 

"Really?" Crowley blurted out, at a rather higher pitch than he'd intended. "That's weird. Maybe there's something defective with the--ekkh--tastebuds, after all. Human corporations are--_akkg_\--aren't great at keeping flavour. Widely considered subpar. Much better off with a nice fatty herbavore. I mean, except the--_nrghk_\--concentrated toxins, I guess, they're like tuna that way--" 

"Oh, but I've always preferred carnivores." Lucifer leaned back, a reprieve that had Crowley slumping with light-headed relief. He really didn't look anything like Aziraphale, anymore. The eyes, yes, but it was also the blood coating His chin, streaks across His face and hair--some of the broken vessels had really squirted--in short He looked like something straight out of a woodcut carving of a devil, as far from Aziraphale as possible. "And you taste positively _sinful_. So many demons are just too, ugh, slimy." 

"I didn't know others had had the honour, Lord." 

"One gets curious. Or just bored. You've always been the most entertaining of the lot." Lucifer sighed, a long theatrical sound, and wrapped His left arm around Crowley's shoulders, pulling him close. Crowley found himself cuddled up against all of Aziraphale's wonderfully warm, plump flesh, feeling it leech pleasure and cold and Light into him. Soft fingers cradled his mangled hand, then slipped around to clasp it. Lucifer's thumb rubbed gentle circles over Crowley's thumbnail, the last nail remaining on that hand. It might also have been the last digit remaining. Crowley was trying not to look. 

"Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have you down in Hell full-time. You know how much I enjoy your visits. You could sit at My feet during Court..." 

It was really very hard to show no panic when one was pressed skin-to-skin with the Lord of Darkness. Crowley could keep himself from tensing, barely. What he couldn't prevent was the fear racing through his limbs, a burst of adrenaline unmatched by physical pain. Delight in his terror pressed at his skin, swirled into the fear in a nauseating combination that nonetheless had Crowley curling into Lucifer, pressing himself more fully against His skin. He couldn't help it, couldn't keep himself from doing it, even as he babbled, "I don't think I'd be as entertaining if I was Hell-bound all the time, Lord. No way to test out new ideas, present You new triumphs, Y'know, that sort of thing."

The pad of Lucifer's thumb seemed to have developed a texture akin to sandpaper. It pressed down against Crowley's thumbnail, still gentle, inexorable as the rest of Him. The sensation sent bright discomfort-flashes from the ribs just beneath Crowley's arm, and the tendon on the side of his neck: corporeal nerves could be odd like that. Crowley found himself welcoming it as discomfort gave way to steadily increasing pain, a grounding counterpoint against the fear. It was, he knew, a most merciful indulgence on the part of his Lord. 

"True, running out of entertaining ideas would go badly for you, and We wouldn't want that. Not permanently." 

"Thank You, Lord." 

Keratin wore away, exposing flesh--and rather sensitive nerve-endings. An intermittant twitch beset Crowley's form, and he struggled to bring it under control. Lucifer hummed, and tapped a thoughtful finger against Crowley's hip. 

"But perhaps you'd be sufficiently inspired by reminders of just _how_ badly it would go for you. I'm sure you'd think of something, under such circumstances. And I'd be able to keep a close eye on you. Ensure no repeats of that ridiculous business last year. Holy water, really, Crowley--"

"I'm sorry, I'm--_agck!_\--sorry, it wasn't, not my idea--"

"--holy water is one thing," Lucifer continued overtop of Crowley's stuttered protests. Crowley's cock had started to harden against Lucifer's hip, and it was increasingly difficult to hold still. The flesh of his thumb had given way; it was now bone beneath the grinder, and all of Lucifer's vicious pleasure in it was sinking barbed hooks into Crowley's spine. The alien force of it wasn't at all like the way it felt when Aziraphale wrapped himself around or inside Crowley and made his nerves sing, and he wasn't sure if that dissonance made it harder or easier to keep himself from rutting forward. He didn't think initiative would be smiled upon, right now, and if it was then that would probably be even worse. 

"Using blessed water for infernal purposes... that's just being twisty. What I really cannot abide, My dear, is the application of more innate virtue." He shifted His weight, and at the same time the headboard on the bed fell away. Crowley found himself flat on his back, staring up into his Lord's eyes like a fly caught in amber. One hand, gentle, pulled his leg up, an age-old precursor to an act he'd participated in many times before, but there was no capacity for relaxation in his body right now: not with that other hand still massaging at his thumb, bone grinding to dust; not with the first hand now resting on his hip, burning an imprint against his corporation's skin. Not with the force of that gaze pressing down and grinding, just as surely, against something far more intimate. 

Lucifer tipped His head sideways and lower, leaving Crowley staring at the ceiling and gasping for breath. 

"You've been dabbling in virtues, Crowley. You've been _generous_ with yourself." His breath was warm and wet against Crowley's skin, leaving behind the tingling sensation of a very, very diffuse touch of the Divine. Teeth bit gently at the curve of Crowley's ear. True gentleness: there was no pain, only the sensation of a wet tongue and the frigid chill of His touch. "You have been sharing that which belongs to your LORD. And I do not give up what is Mine." 

Crowley's brain stuttered, stopped, and restarted. Instincts (the standard package installed in every human-shaped corporation) had him attempt to take a breath, to give himself a second to gather his thoughts, but he found himself stymied. Lucifer's weight pressed down on him; a body that should have been warm and yielding managed to both hold that shape and be as flexible as icy granite. Physically, there was simply no space for Crowley's chest to expand into so that his lungs could draw in air. His mattress should have been compressible, granting him some small reprieve, but instead any attempt to make his body think that only resulted in him being more firmly pinned down against it. The exact distance between the top of the mattress and Lucifer's chest remained the same, and Crowley's body could not increase that distance. 

Not that he _needed_ to breathe, of course. He was a demon. 

But Lucifer was mouthing at the underside of Crowley's jaw, now, all along the side of his neck. Breathing might have been--psychologically useful. Crowley couldn't make his body relax, couldn't stop anticipating the sudden bite of fangs. Lucifer licked at his skin and Crowley could taste himself on his own tongue, a welter of sensation forcibly made into his own: he tasted like fear and stressed panic. He tasted of unhappy arousal. He tasted _scrumptious_. 

"I've been contemplating a suitable course of action," Lucifer said against his skin, breathing the words out. They sank into flesh like wicked little needles. "The most straightforward way to deal with you would be to render you incapable of such... generosity. Would you like to be human, My dear? You've always been so enamoured with them." 

_Just zeal for doing my job, Lord,_ Crowley wanted to say. The lie rose easily; he knew Lucifer would be able to tell but that didn't matter so long as He was willing to indulge. _Have to be able to dig into the psyche to be able to perform all those mass temptations--_

But he couldn't say it. There was no air in his lungs. Crowley tried to remind his throat that it could function just fine without any air whooshing out, it wasn't like he needed the strings and things that humans used to produce sound, but--

But he did. His vision was swimming. All at once he was very aware he hadn't taken a breath in--how long? Didn't matter. He--he was--

"It'd be a quick death," Lucifer mused. "No eternity chained in darkness, just a few decades of decay and then you'd be gone. And even I'm not sure what would happen to you then. Would you return to Hell, restored? Hardly an onerous punishment, that. Perhaps I would let you retain your immortality. You could rot away into sinew and bone, until all your flesh fell to dust and you had no muscles to move you..." 

_I can't move _now! Crowley wanted to protest, but he had no _air_. His skin--his skin itched. The side of his face felt prickly. Oh, Someone, no. No. Lucifer's descriptions were getting to him, that was all. This wasn't--Lucifer hadn't really done it, had He? Crowley's brain was just conjuring fears for him. But there were dust mites chewing at his dead skin and it _itched_. He could feel his own cells: taking in energy, putting it out, growing, dying. Nonononono. His mouth opened and shut, uselessly, like a fish stranded without water. Unable to breathe. Dying. 

"...an eternity trapped in your own skin. Well. Bones. The skin would rot, too..." 

Lucifer pushed him _down_, pressing in on him in a way that humans couldn't, not with each other, not with anything else. Even witches couldn't really share themselves, not like this. Rendered unable to reciprocate, to give of himself (or be taken) in return, the compression was unbearable. It wasn't the first time he'd felt this--Lucifer was fond of squishing him--but it had always been, he'd always had some certainty that it was _temporary_, and now he was trapped in his own skin and spots were dancing in his vision and he'd have screamed if he could only _breathe_\--

The pressure ceased. Crowley drew in a great lungful of air and immediately choked on his own spit. He tried to curl up as he coughed, but hands held both his wrists firm, and another hand was in his hair, forcibly keeping his head still as Lucifer traced circles over Crowley's collarbone with His tongue. 

"Alas, I'm too selfish. I really can't be giving up what is Mine. Not to Death, the old bastard, and certainly not to mere... isolation."

"Thank You, Lord," Crowley wheezed.

"You're very welcome," Lucifer said graciously. 

The itching hadn't gone away. 

"You're not, uh, You're not thinking of giving it a temporary go, are You, Lord?" Crowley asked. He tried to keep any anxiety from his voice. Temporary he could deal with, he reminded himself. So long as it was _temporary._ He tried to focus on that, and less on how his Lord was now pressing kisses down his side, across his ribs. Each left behind a tingling imprint that he could feel like a flake of ice, slowly cooling to something near the boiling point of helium. 

"I might. It does leave Me with a pickle, doesn't it? What shall I do with My unloyal servant? Perhaps the fault is Mine after all, for not instilling discipline..."

Danger, _DANGER!_ shrieked Crowley's brain, overriding concerns about disintegrating skin and chewed fingers. "Never, my Lord, never--the fault is all Your ungracious, unworthy servant's"--he cringed reflexively; 6000 years of slithering out of responsibility left him ill-equipped to claim it even when doing so might be his only hope--"who has failed You and should probably be punished but oh please not with--"

"Oh, stop that," said Lucifer. He ran cold fingers along Crowley's collarbone--the right one, the one that wasn't burning with itching--petting him like a cat. "So you still know how to properly fear Me. I'd wondered. I knew of your attentions to this creature in the fourteenth century." This abrupt new information was delivered as He sat up, all the better to wave one hand to indicate the body that--it wasn't Aziraphale's, Crowley knew that. Not at the moment. He tasted guilt. He needed to figure out what had happened to Aziraphale, he couldn't afford to forget that. If he lost himself too quick, he might lose everything. He might have already lost everything anyway. 

"And there you go again. I don't even have your whole focus, do I?" 

It was absurd to see the Lord of Hell pout, but He did have a good face for it at the moment. Ignoring the blood covering His chin, of course. "Lord, You have my complete and devoted attention--" and so did the way He was brusquely pulling Crowley's knees up and out to the sides. It would have been painful if Crowley hadn't been considerably more flexible than the average human. 

"In the fourteenth century, I knew you were distracted... but I thought it merely one of your whims. I didn't see _this_," said Lucifer, and with no warning at all lined up His cock and shoved inside. 

It hurt. 

It hurt, which pleased Lucifer. Crowley's cock swelled against his stomach, yet untouched, while he gasped for air and tried desperately to get his muscles to relax--being fucked was more about a state of mind than anything else, especially for him, but all the fear had him wound up and tense and he just couldn't do it. Or maybe that was due to Lucifer's hand on his hip, overriding whatever signals Crowley's brain tried to send to his ass, keeping him tense and tight and in agony. Something might have torn, he couldn't be sure; it all felt like one massive spike of sick pain and nausea as he was split apart and his guts protested. 

Then Lucifer reached down and put His hand around Crowley's cock, and rubbed a circle over the head with His thumb. Everything in Crowley seized up in dual fear and pleasure. Mostly fear. This was the same grip that had so gently taken his thumb and then so inexorably pressed down and _down_ like sandpaper, and when Lucifer made another little circle Crowley choked on air. His whole body attempted to fall through the mattress, anticipating the sudden bright burst of crushing agony that hadn't appeared. Of course, he went nowhere. Hands gripped his wrists, hair, and knees, keeping him quite secured, as if his Lord's Will would not have been enough all on its own. The only thing that happened was that tensing all his skin made his face itch worse--and the side of his neck, and his left eyelid and left ear, and all down his left side, across his ribs and down his stomach. It was a bewildering counterpoint to the dizzying pain in his ass and abdomen. 

"Hmm." Lucifer sounded vaguely pleased. He pulled back in a rough and sudden motion, not all the way out but far enough that the sudden absence _also_ hurt, as muscles that had been trying to adapt to pressure and force now registered their deep disgruntlement at such contrary signals. Then He shoved in again, timing it with the stroke of His thumb over Crowley's cockhead, and Crowley shuddered, helpless against an ingrained response that he hadn't had half an hour ago, which was just downright unfair. 

"I could fill you up again, as I have before. But who knows if it would be enough now? Was the temptation too much for you even then, My darling serpent?" 

"I'll never--ahhh!--never see him--urgh!--again, my Lord, ne--guuhkk!"

Laughter. 

Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered. Several car alarms went off. A dog barked frantically, then subsided to a distressed whine and hid under its owner's bed. 

Lucifer fucked him through it. 

"My dear," He said warmly, and leaned down at an impossible angle to press a kiss to Crowley's lips. "We are already well past that, don't you think?" 

The panic swelled higher, spiking with yet another full-body jolt as Lucifer stroked His thumb down the side of Crowley's cock. He was fully hard, now, and if he'd had any leverage he might have been bucking up into Lucifer's grip rather than trying to squirm away from it. That it wasn't his own keen interest coursing beneath his skin made no difference at all. 

"Lord, he's not--he's n-noth_hnnng_\--"

"Oh, Crowley. Already you disappoint Me again. Did you really think I knew nothing of your little game? Its deeper meaning? I know you can't withstand holy water." He nipped at Crowley's lower lip, a minor point of pain; Crowley neither knew nor cared whether He'd drawn blood. "What do you think I've been breathing onto your skin?" 

The itching, burning sensation of it suddenly clicked together, and Crowley thrashed, primal fear igniting in the depths of his snakey brain. He'd have crawled out of his own skin if he could, peeled it off and run away, but instead he was trapped in it, and it throbbed, it _itched_, and he wanted to claw his skin off but Lucifer had hold of his arms. He couldn't even try to rub frantically at the sheets; Lucifer's grip on his hair kept him from turning his face against them. He was going to melt. He was going to die slower than Ligur had, so-much-slower. He felt sick to his stomach and couldn't tell if it was impending death or Lucifer's continued, brutal thrusts, wrenching him open. 

It didn't even make sense--Lucifer was the Devil, Satan, antithesis of everything holy. But if any Fallen Angel could, why not Him? He'd fallen and become Lord in His own domain. He'd fallen into darkness and lit Hell with His own Light. 

"So difficult to turn your brain off," observed Lucifer. It might have been irritated, or it might have been fond. Crowley's ear for such a thing, usually very keen, was at the moment overridden by his own internal protests. The inattention, at least, didn't seem to bother Him. He captured Crowley's mouth again and breathed in, wrenching air from Crowley's lungs. Then He breathed _out_, and it was like trying to breathe in a deep Siberian winter, or a storm at the top of Everest, only there was nothing thin about this air; it burned down Crowley's throat and settled into his lungs, scouring all the tissue there. It burned. It _itched_. Crowley's body spasmed as he tried to cough, but Lucifer kept breathing into him and there was no denying Him, until at last his lungs were full to near-bursting and Lucifer broke the seal of their mouths, His own forming into a smile against Crowley's lips. 

Crowley coughed and gasped and shuddered, dragging air in frantically. But nothing would soothe his throat and lungs. He stupidly, reflexively, ran his tongue over his lips, and his tongue began to tingle and itch as well. It hurt, and all the while Lucifer drove into him. He was fucked from both ends. 

He was fucked entirely. He was never going to see Aziraphale again. Aziraphale was--he needed to stop thinking about it; he could feel his Lord's thoughts taking note of his own, it would only make everything worse. If there was even anything worse left for Aziraphale, and he had to stop _thinking_\--

"Let's play a game."

Lucifer's terrible eyes were smiling, and with a jolt Crowley's scattered thoughts fell back into his body, all the places where it ached and burned inside and itched without. He bit his tongue to stop a scream. Discorporation would be infinitely better than this. Except discorporation wouldn't stop this--but at least there'd no longer be that terrible itch, like a thousand of Beelzebub's tiniest flies had decided to crawl over the left side of his face and nest in his ear, their wings brushing against his skin and stimulating it into a frenzied rash. 

Lucifer pulled Crowley's head back and straight, and leaned over to nibble at his other ear. The freezing dampness of His breath settled over Crowley's skin all along the side of his face and neck, and tears prickled at the corners of Crowley's eyes. Not more. He couldn't stand more.

Amidst that fog of infernal holiness, Lucifer murmured, "I'll give you a choice, darling. If you keep your hands down and don't scratch, I'll tell you what I did to the angel."

And then the hands in his hair, on his wrists and knees, let go. A further wrench, and Lucifer pulled out entirely. Crowley shuddered through the sudden sickening emptiness and looked up to find his Lord now sitting above him in bed. Smiling. A painfully cold finger stroked down Crowley's cheek, where the itching was worst, and it burned like a branding iron but it was a tiny point of _not_ itching amidst a sea of swollen, reddened skin. 

Crowley's hand, the one that still had fingers, abruptly sprouted claws. It wasn't Lucifer's doing; it was all him. He wanted, he couldn't stand it--

He gave a garbled shriek of pain and fear and frustration and dug his fingers into the mattress, shredding fabric. His ruined hand protested, but it _also_ itched--he wanted to scrape it against the sheets, for whatever scant friction might be had against silk, but he didn't dare. His muscles seized up and trembled beneath the force of his conflicting will and desire. 

"Nothing, indeed," said Lucifer. 

"Please, Lord. _Please--_"

"Ah, ah, ah. It wouldn't be any fun if the game ended quickly, would it?" Lucifer shushed him, placing ice-cold fingers over Crowley's burning lips. He let himself be hushed, sinking his fingers further into the rents in the mattress, blind from the force of _not_ writhing. For his efforts, Lucifer rewarded him with another air-devouring kiss, breath exchanged and lungs set afire; it was like the first drag on a cigarette after a lifetime's abstinence, with a hundredfold the nicotine high and a thousandfold the burn, impossible not to cough--but he couldn't. Even when Lucifer released his mouth and pressed kisses along his jaw, Crowley couldn't. Couldn't. It might scratch the terrible itching in his throat.

Lucifer moved upward, kissing feather-light along his cheekbones, and upon both eyelids. Crowley had his eyes shut tight, but tears were escaping anyway. They tickled mildly going down the right side of his face, where the chill of Lucifer's breath was only just beginning to sink into his skin, and they burned like concentrated fire-ant venom as they trailed down the left side of his face, the salt providing yet one more irritation to inflamed skin. 

"Such defiance," said Lucifer. He was no longer pressed so close, naked skin to naked skin, and Crowley didn't have the wherewithal to sort out any more emotions anyway; he couldn't tell if He was offended or proud or simply amused. 

Probably amused. Or at least in a playful mood, again; He showered kisses on Crowley's brow, and then moved down, nibbling gently at his ear, giving it the same treatment that He'd shown the left one. Lower, and he put His mouth over the pulse-point in Crowley's neck and sucked, pulling a full-body shudder and leaving behind stinging fire. The fire wasn't the terrible part; the fire, Crowley could deal with (had dealt with worse). It was the tingling that passed irritation and went to all-consuming sensation--and then Lucifer moved lower, settled wet kisses along his shoulder, down his collarbone. Lower, to one nipple, and He took it into His mouth and sucked.

It would have been kinder to give it the same treatment as He had Crowley's fingers. Crowley _shrieked_, every muscle tensed and tendon straining--and didn't move.

Lucifer withdrew. Through tear-swollen eyes Crowley watched Him survey His handiwork. He couldn't read the expression on His face; his vision was blurry, from tears and the constant trembling that worked through him. His whole left side was afire, and he needed relief, and his right side was quickly joining it--but he'd held himself together through fire before, and imagining that everything was _fine_ might be beyond him when the Lord of Hell was running graceful hands along his thighs, toward his feet, but he could yet imagine that he could endure this. 

Crowley had a very strong imagination. 

He couldn't imagine not gasping and choking when Lucifer took his toes into His mouth, a sensation not unlike bathing them in liquid nitrogen infused with ghost peppers. The tremors that wracked him could not be dismissed with figments of thought. He could only focus on being able to withstand it--withstand it, because he couldn't move, it was somehow absolutely essential that he didn't (wasn't it?), even as Lucifer licked a stripe up the sole of his foot, then gently placed it flat on the mattress--it would have been so easy to try to rub it against the sheets, but he didn't, he didn't move--and then gave the other foot the same attention. Crowley hiccuped, and cried, and kept himself--not still, but not writhing. Not shredding his own skin and casting it away. 

Lucifer stretched out beside him and watched him with bright, bright eyes. "Darling. I think you're _cheating_." 

"Nnnghh," managed Crowley. 

"Well, if we're going to permit cheating..."

He leaned over Crowley again, and mouthed along his collarbone. It was done with a contemplative air, up to and including the moment where He bit down. Crowley thrashed and nearly arched off the bed, except that Lucifer held him with His teeth, holding him in jaws that seemed too immense to fit in a corporeal face. Teeth that had sliced through skin crunched through bone, and then Lucifer fastened His mouth on one broken end of the bone and began sucking on it, drawing the marrow out like somebody trying to drink a slushy through a too-small straw, and Crowley might have been screaming or might have been not breathing at all, he couldn't tell past the maddening pain of it. He only vaguely noticed that Lucifer was devouring metaphysical marrow as well as the corporation's. It hurt less. It felt colder. 

It all felt colder, and of maddening slow decay, like the dampness left behind by acid rain, etching away everything beneath it over years and decades. His Lord adored it, was pressed up against Crowley's body again, drinking in pain and setting crackling lightning in the pleasure centres of his brain; and it wasn't him, he just wanted to _rip off his fucking skin_ but from his Lord it was the _blinding precipice of pleasure in His subject's agony_. He couldn't keep track of his own thoughts--he was--he needed to--to--

Confusion and despair were consumed with triumph and vicious joy, sufficient for the final tumble, a little fall. Lucifer reached down and traced two wet fingers up the underside of Crowley's cock as he screamed and came, Another's lust ripping the orgasm out of him. It didn't end; it didn't end when Lucifer stroked down and over his balls, along his perineum, over his much-abused asshole, setting them all afire. Crowley seized, and came again, swamped by Lucifer's raw enjoyment, setting every nerve to maximum sensitivity and oh God help him it _itched_\--

Fabric tore and Crowley's mangled hand flew to his face; Lucifer was lying atop the other. It made no difference: the ragged ends of bone worked as well as claws for raking at agonized, swollen flesh. It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_ and he couldn't stop, there was a bright white static in his head and it consumed him as he ripped and tore and sought relief and didn't find it--every layer he peeled off just revealed more itching, infected tissue beneath. It had sunk past his flesh, into bone, into soul. 

For a while, that was all there was: broken flesh, broken will. And nothing more. 

His brain rebooted slowly, in fits and starts. One of the first things he noticed was Lucifer: no longer sitting on the bed, but instead in one of Aziraphale's favourite century-old, overstuffed armchairs, watching him intently. He'd put on one of Aziraphale's equally-antique dressing gowns, to match the chair, and it gave Him an entirely incongruous look, making His face look not quite right. Crowley's brain couldn't manage to process why. 

Furtively, he took slow stock of his body. It... ached, but far less than he'd expected. The itching wasn't quite gone, but seemed manageable; it was no worse than an average bout of dry skin. His hand--he couldn't manage subtle as his eyes flicked down to his hand, and he only just kept himself from flinching. His hand was fixed. Though maybe that shouldn't have been such a surprise; he was _looking_ at his hand, after all, but he had the distinct memory of both of his eyes being gouged by jagged bone splinters, deep enough for some very unpleasant popping sensations. That they hadn't been unpleasant at the time made them moreso in retrospective contemplation. 

"I healed you up," said Lucifer quietly. Crowley darted a glance to His face. It really didn't look right--ah, it was clean. No blood. And the eyes...

Oh. 

Wait.

But was it really...? It seemed vanishingly unlikely... 

"Crowley," said Aziraphale's mouth. "Crowley, I don't know what happened."


End file.
